In the late spring/early summer of 2014, an article circulated around Facebook of some Irish Viking beads.  I was intrigued and wanted to give them a shot.  Here are the original, extant beads:

I had originally intended them to fulfill a request, but the request was cancelled.  This is why the beads were done in Ealdormere colours rather than exploring the blue glass palette.

From looking at the extant beads, I can see that some of the twisties used have a clear core and some have opaque cores.  I used all clear for mine.  To avoid having the white spread into the clear, I first made clear-encased white stringers and used those to create the lines for the twisties.  I also used transparent reds as much as possible because the opaque reds in the appropriate shade tend to bleed into white.  I don’t completely remember, but it is likely I used clear cores in some of the beads to brighten up the transparent red.  The black, wavy stripes have black stringer lines placed first and melted in, followed by clear/white twisties, left slightly raised.

The parts of these beads I am least happy with are the twistie dots on the first and last beads.  I wasn’t quite sure how these had been done, and the best method seemed to be cutting a section of twistie and using it as pulled murrini.  Upon further thought, I have an alternative theory as to how these would have been formed.  I think it is far more likely that the clear base dot was applied, tiny, white dots were applied around the edges, and then a clear or coloured stringer was used to twist the dot, broken off, and then partially melted in.

Most of these beads have now been given away as tokens.